Page 72 of Heartbreaker
“Suplex by Taylor!” Jude Paul yells. “He just suplexed Damian Drake into the steel.”
“No give whatsoever,” Scott adds, as both men lie on the ground, trying to recoup.
It takes until the count of six for Brooks to climb to his feet, granted a little unsteady, and he forces Drake to do the same. They trade blows to the head as they make their way through the crowd once more and finally back inside the ring.
“Wait, what’s this?” Scott Harrington asks when someone walks out from backstage. There’s no music, no backdrop, nothing. “What is Savvy Skye doing out here?”
The three-time women’s champion doesn’t pay much attention to the crowd, not even stopping to offer a quick smile or high-five like usual. Her focus is solely on the two men who are finally back in the ring. She stands at the bottom of the ramp, arms crossed, watching Brooks Taylor dominate his opponent. After a few moments, she slowly begins to make her way around the side of the ring.
“What are you doing out here?” Jude Paul yells outside of his headset when she gets close enough. Savvy looks over her shoulder, and a smile slowly spreads across her red-painted lips before she turns back. “You know something, Scott? I don’t like the look of that.”
“Me either.”
“This is a Last Man Standing match, so anything goes. No disqualifications, no pinfalls, and the only way to win is by beating your opponent so bad they won’t get back up. That means she can be out here and interfere without costing Brooks Taylor the match.”
“You assume she’s here to help Brooks,” Scott says. “But they haven’t been together in a long time, Jude. She might be out here to join forces with his archrival, Damian Drake.”
Brooks whips Drake into the ropes and hits him with a hard clothesline, sending him down to the mat. The champ wastes no time, putting his opponent into a figure-four leg lock, but this time, instead of twisting Drake onto his stomach for the cloverleaf, Brooks drops to the mat upon rebound, falling backwards to apply pressure to Drake’s legs.
“Brooks can’t win via submission, but he can win if Drake passes out from the pain, or if he does enough damage that Damian Drake cannot get back to his feet,” Jude explains.
“I hate this hold. It’s the most painful one to be put in,” Scott says.
Drake attempts to lift the foot of his opponent and escape, but Brooks pounds his fist down onto Drake’s ankle.
“If Drake can counter the attack, somehow rolling onto his belly, that would take the pressure off his leg and apply it all on Brooks.”
“That looks to be what he’s trying to do,” Jude says.
Slowly, Drake twists his upper body, and his lower body soon follows until both men are face down on the mat. Brooks screams out in pain as the pressure Drake had been feeling is now applied to his own leg. Drake can only maintain the hold for a moment before his legs give out. Both men lie in a tangled mess of limbs as the referee begins the count.
Rousing first, Damian Drake slides out of the ring, trying to regain his bearings. That’s when he finally notices the new person standing outside the ring.
She watches him, but doesn’t attack. Instead, she slinks into the ring and watches Brooks slowly climb to his feet. Without warning, Savvy sweeps his leg, sending him back down to the mat with a sickening thud. She stands over him, staring out at the crowd, and their cheers only egg her on. She snakes her arm around his neck, forcing him up into a bridged position. The soles of his shoes dig into the canvas, and she drives her knee into his exposed spine. She does it three more times, and while normally she’d drop to her knees, she stands tall, slamming her forearm down hard on his chest. She does it two more times, knocking him back onto the mat with the third blow.
“Heartbreaker! Savvy Skye just performed her finishing move on Brooks Taylor,” Jude says as a chorus of “Holy shit” rings out from the crowd. “The champ is down, and I’m not sure he’s getting back up.”
“That was one of the most brutal Heartbreaks I’ve ever seen!” Scott’s excitement and confusion blend in with the crowd.
Savvy looks around the arena, meeting the eyes of every fan seated along the barricade. She bites down on her lower lip with a grin before she meets the bulging eyes of the other man in this match as he watches the scene unfold.
“What in the hell just happened?” Jude asks when she steps through the middle ropes and walks down the steel stairs without a word.
The referee has already reached the count of five as she begins her ascent up the ramp, walking backwards so she can continue to watch the aftermath of her interference. Brooks never gets back up, and the referee finally reaches ten.
“That’s it, that’s ten! Damian Drake has won the title.”
“Yeah, thanks to Savvy Skye,” Scott says with a soft chuckle. “Something tells me this was meant to send a message, Jude. One question remains—why Brooks Taylor?”
“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask when the tour bus door opens and my girlfriend heaves one bag over her shoulder, then sets a suitcase on the ground.
“I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?” I scoff. If she thinks she is going to walk away without explaining what just happened, she has another thing coming. That was not part of the plan. Hell, she wasn’t even supposed to be out there tonight. It was supposed to be a normal match between me and Drake, and I was supposed to retain the fucking title. But that didn’t happen because she turned on meagain. And when I asked Noah about it, he shook his head and said I needed to talk to Savannah. “Can’t we talk about this first?”
She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t make a move to leave, either.
“I am so confused, and rightfully so, don’t you think? You just cost me my match, Savannah. Without warning. Please, can we go inside and talk?”
